Saturday, January 29, 2011

We do not appreciate how scripted and planned news ordinarily is, until we see and hear the usually-silver-tongued news personalities fumbling and babbling on live TV. The two videos below are both recorded from live broadcasts by Al Jazeera English, and both provide a good look at just how flustered news people get when required to do without their scripts.

Keep in mind that although it is early Saturday in California, it was already late afternoon in Egypt when these were broadcast about an hour ago.

The first is visually interesting, but you might as well turn the sound off, as the news anchors commenting have no more idea what's going on than we do.

The next video is a live interview with a prominent Egyptian blogger now residing in South Africa. Note how the satellite lag on the voice link is driving them both crazy. This is the opposite of the above video; all the information is in the audio. The only thing you'll learn from the visual portion is that this Egyptian blogger desperately needs to spend a few minutes with a razor and a hair brush if he's going to do video interviews. (and we'll just ignore the fact that I look twice as scruffy as he does)

Abdelfataa makes some interesting points, in spite of the talk-overs. First, I was interested to hear him say that the "football clubs" have actually been the biggest force in organizing these demonstrations. It was also informative to hear him confirm that Al-Baradei, the former head of the IAEA, has lost much of his popularity for leaving the country at a time of crisis.

Interesting days, my friends, interesting days indeed.

Oh, and the whining, mealy-mouthed hypocrisy of the Obama administration in calling upon Mubarak to reform. As if our nation had not been giving the Mubarak government 1.5 billion dollars a year to maintain its security state stranglehold upon the Egyptian people, and doing so for decades now. I almost pity Hilary for having to deliver such blatant bullshit. Then again, once you've had Bill Clinton's well-traveled cock in your mouth, I don't suppose a few lies can taste that much worse.

Political cartoons are often a good indicator of how people feel on a subject, assuming they survive the translation process and inter-cultural confusion. For three delicious cartoons from the Arab media that translate just fine, have a look here.

2 comments:

Yeah, it actually makes me kind of sick to think about the conversations between Obama and Mubarak. He's giving him advice on how to stay in power, how to pacify the people who are rising against him, and it's exactly the same technique he uses to keep his former progressive supporters from rising against HIM: "Just promise that you'll change things, make a few minor reforms here and there, and do whatever you can to make the people believe that's the best they can hope for."

Hopefully this strategy won't work on Egyptians as effectively as it's worked on most American progressives.